"The Social Network"

Over the weekend I went out for a lovely night at the movies with my girlfriend. The film we saw was none other than the new, trendy film “The Social Network,” a film about the founding of Facebook, loosely based on fact, and the book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich. My expectations for the quality of the film going in were not extremely high, but that’s not to say that I thought it would be a piece of crap either. I must admit, however, that the story of the founding of Facebook is very intriguing. I began reading The Facebook Effect a little ahead of the class schedule 1) because I was able to get it for my new Nook e-reader and wanted an excuse to use my new toy and 2) the first few pages I sampled seemed very interesting; it was different from most college textbooks, probably because it’s not technically a textbook. Anyway, having a slight background of the movie plot, I was looking forward to seeing how it played out in the film.

I had heard and read that the films main focus is bashing Mark Zuckerberg and making him look like the biggest scumbag in history. While the film no doubt lives up to that description – in the film’s opening scene, the girl with whom Zuckerberg is on a date says he’ll never get a girl to like him because he’s an “asshole” – I thought the film, while in no way a pro-Zuckerberg work, really shows how Zuckerberg always had the best of intentions for Facebook and never meant to hurt anyone in the process. However, what is clear is how his devotion to the site outweighed the devotions to any of his personal relationships. He had a very specific vision for Facebook, and anyone that didn’t help him achieve it was cast by the wayside. To his credit, it seems as though Facebook became exactly what he wanted it to be. What he didn’t expect was the reaction to his ruthless treatment of those with whom he interacted while developing Facebook – whether legal, professional, or personal. Overall, the film portrays Zuckerberg not as a one-dimensional prick – which is what I expected – but rather as an abrasive kid who fell victim to his own ambition. He accomplished what he wanted as a website developer, but ironically, the social networking tool he created that came to define popularity left him virtually friendless.